On 11/18/2018 12:54 PM, wrote:
There is a lot of mismanagement going on. For some reason the tree
huggers are against controlled burns so when they get a fire it
quickly becomes an uncontrollable burn.
Simply put, Smokey Bear was wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward...Escape_Rout e

I was in Wallace last week and walked the trail up to the tunnel. I'd
been there before but it's a nice walk up the creek. The informational
signs along the trail say the Great Burn was the start of the 'let no
fire go unsuppressed' philosophy.

I was in Yellowstone in '88 when the decision was made to let the fires
burn if they weren't threatening structures. That was very
controversial. Since then that has been more common. The problem is when
the controlled burns get out of control. Last spring one of the burns
here got away from them. It didn't hurt anything but it wasn't what the
FS had in mind. One part of the perimeter stalled out when it hit an
area that had been burned in 2003.

Both the FS and the state stress defensible perimeters around houses
that are built in the woods. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Roaring
Lion creek burned a couple of years ago and many of the houses went. One
survived and it didn't appear to be any better or worse than the ones
that were lost. Just luck, I guess.

In the 2003 fire there was one house up a drainage that the fire
fighters foamed as they retreated but didn't expect it to survive. The
owner said they'd fully understood the dangers and if it was gone, it
was gone, Most aren't that philosophical. It survived. I don't think the
guy was particularly religious but we referred to it as the 'angel
house' because there were a lot of ceramic angels along the trail
perched on rocks or under trees that he had placed. Maybe they were
watching out.

Fast forward 15 years and now there are two new houses even further up
the canyon. Good luck to them.